Vehicles for hire with drivers, or the enclosed areas where drivers sit in large trucks or trains.
Short for 'cabriolet,' a light carriage from French. The motor taxi sense developed in the early 1900s and became widespread after motorized vehicles replaced horse-drawn carriages.
The word 'cab' is actually a shortened form of 'cabriolet,' which was a fancy two-wheeled horse carriage—so when taxis came along, they just borrowed the old word, and now hardly anyone knows the original vehicle it referred to.
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